


For Caf

by Davechicken



Series: The Pilot and his Dark Knight [10]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 21:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8862808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: Kylo's 'home', and Leia wants them to talk.





	

The man who he used to know is… dead? Gone? Poe isn’t sure. 

Though he had hardly been a man, then. They’d both thought they were, no matter the digits racked up in medical records and name-day celebrations. At some point they’d both considered themselves Grown, and Poe thinks maybe it was when he lost his mom that he did, but he isn’t sure when… when _Ben_ had.

But this man isn’t Ben, who had been a boy and never a man. This man goes by a different name, even when you strip the mask and some of the black from him. When you take away the aspirated voice, and gloves. When you make him _Human_ again, instead of the personified walking embodiment of your worst fucking nightmare.

This man - whose face is so like Ben’s! - is a killer. Is one who had ripped into Poe’s very heart and soul, digging for a truth he’d hidden beyond the hope of his own survival. This man who tortured and broke him, and who would have killed him or left him for dead.

This man. 

He’s not Ben, but he’s still Leia Organa’s son, still Han Solo’s son. The overlap is strange and eerie, and it makes his skin crawl. 

He came back. Right when everyone thought he would never. He came back, curled into a corner of a ship they’d run through as children, play-acting the wars they’d later fight. He’d not left his mother’s house for days on end, and this is the first time they’re looking at one another.

Leia asked him to come, and Poe is sort of… how do you? How do you talk to a man who used to be a boy you loved, and who hurt you so badly? How? How can you… what do you even _say_? 

“I’m sorry,” is what Kylo says, making the first decision for them.  


“For…”  


“You know what for.”  


Poe does know what for. He also listens to the tone, and reads the face, and sees nothing but sincerity. Kylo… _looks_ sorry. Poe is still angry and hurt, but… is it going to help him? Feeling angry and hurt? Is it going to make him feel better, or is it going to make him feel worse?

“What changed your mind?”  


“Hope,” the man says, simply. “He is weaker without me. And…”  


That sort of makes no sense at all. “You wanted… him to lose?”

Eyes that close, a pained expression. “I never wanted so many people to die.”

“…’so many’.”  


A wince. “I’m being honest. Smaller numbers… I could live with, because it kept me safe. But…”

Five planets.

“You couldn’t have stopped it, first?”  


“I tried. I… tried.”  


Not hard enough, Poe thinks. Still, he’s here now. The man with the face of a boy who grew up, or at least grew taller. Sadder. More pained. More… aware of the world. Poe wonders if he looks much the same.

“You can help us a lot. I’m… not gonna lie, it’s hard to talk to you,” the pilot confesses.  


“That’s fair.”  


“But… I want to try. I don’t _want_ to be mad at you, even after what you did. I want reasons _not_ to be mad at you. It just… might take me some time.”  


“A chance is all I ask,” Kylo says, with a flicker of that thing - that _hope_ he said he saw.   


Poe can’t snuff that out. “You know… I’m glad you’re back.”

“Thank you.”  


“Missed you a lot. You know. Over the years.” It’s true, and there’s no harm in admitting it.  


“I know we can’t go back to how we were, but… could we at least… try? For as much as we can?”  


Poe thinks, then nods. “We can try. Just… don’t rush into things. We need to work out who the other _is_ , now.”

“I need to find out who _I_ am, to let you know,” Kylo replies.   


“Alright. I… okay. Maybe we start with caf, sometime. I’ll give you my comm details. We can… set up a time?” Poe is seriously doing this? He’s letting the man who tortured him get unrestricted access to message him whenever? Apparently he is.   


But then, even if he isn’t _Ben_ , he’s still the same person. Sort of.

Close enough.

“Caf,” Kylo says, with a little smile. “I can do caf.”  



End file.
